Barriers to Residential Wildland Fire Mitigation

While ecological and engineering approaches to residential wildfire mitigation are generally well understood, uptake of these measures is inconsistent and limited. This scoping review appraises literature from the past decade to describe and categorise factors affecting residential adoption of mitigation related practices. A qualitative synthesis approach was applied to extract individual and societal factors from a set of 78 articles meeting the inclusion criteria. This paper provides an overview of common determinants of uptake as described in recent literature and identifies notable trends and gaps to provide relevant insight that can be applied by practitioners to increase community preparedness. The identified factors have been organized into 9 themes: social connection and capital; geospatial and land tenure; risk perception; perceived effectiveness; perceived responsibility; demographics; governing bodies, regulations, and insurance; aesthetics, and education and information. The findings from this study demonstrate the complex nature of mitigation adoption within residential populations, and points to current gaps in the literature such as geographic diversity and participant diversity in our studies.

To read, please visit the Fire Safety Journal or contact Dr. Kennedy.